5 possible challengers for Jinder Mahal's WWE Championship
Many people may be wondering how someone like Jinder Mahal, who was little more than a ‘jobber’ during his initial stint in the WWE, was catapulted up the ranks when he returned to the fold in 2016.
But the truth is that he wasn’t.
Even after Mahal spent two years in the Indies since being released by the WWE in 2014, he didn’t set the world on fire outside the company. And when he signed on again in 2016, he wasn’t set up with a rocket strapped to his back and flown straight to the moon either.
For large parts of 2016, Mahal continued being used as a glorified enhancement talent, losing to the likes of Neville, Sami Zayn and even Darren Young. It was only after WrestleMania 33 that Mahal found himself in the right place at the right time.
Also Read: Interview: Jinder Mahal comments on his WWE Championship win, his journey to the top, Brock Lesnar and more
SmackDown Live! needed a top heel and the Maharaja, rippling muscles and all, was right there.
But now that he’s been made the WWE Champion, it’s a whole different ball game, as Conor McGregor likes to say. Mahal has the target on his back now, and there will be Superstars lining up to get a shot at his title.
But which opponents actually make sense for Jinder? If the WWE hope to book him as anything other than a flash in the pan Champion, he needs legitimate competition. And by that, I mean one of the five men that are on this list.
Here then are 5 possible challengers for Jinder Mahal’s WWE Championship.
#1 Brock Lesnar
Before you allow your eyebrows to meet your hairline, take a minute to fight off the feeling of incredulity and consider this idea.
Brock Lesnar may be the Universal Champion on Raw, only make sporadic appearances on WWE programming and has five men fighting tooth and nail for the right to face him for his title – but in this day and age, nothing sells more than a Superfight.
Even in the UFC, which the WWE defers to as ‘legitimate competition’, jumping around in weight classes and making belt-unification Superfights has become the name of the game.
Whether in MMA or in pro wrestling, it’s just that much more marketable when Champion fights Champion.
However, the only caveat in making this match is that the next dual-Brand pay-per-view is SummerSlam in August, meaning that both Lesnar and Mahal have to be involved in lengthy reigns in order to even remotely make it a possibility.
But hey, never say never, right?